


Once Upon a December

by SailorSol



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Dresses, Female Characters, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Gen, Makeup, POV Female Character, Room of Requirement, Yule Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1312999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millicent isn’t pretty like Daphne Greengrass, or flirty and outgoing like Pansy Parkinson. She doesn’t spend all of her money on lipstick and nail polish like Lavender Brown or Parvati Patil. She’s not even athletic, like Cho Chang or Ginny Weasley. But that doesn’t mean Millicent doesn’t want her chance at a fairy tale evening either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a December

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katmarajade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katmarajade/gifts).



Millicent found the room during her first year, after Pansy had called her a hag in the middle of the Slytherin common room, and all the older students had laughed. Millicent knows she isn’t pretty like other girls, but it’s not like Pansy’s face isn’t squashed in like a pug dog. But no one listens when Millicent tries to point that out, and for the rest of that day, everyone calls her a hag.

It was after dinner that night, when she’d been trying furiously not to cry, when she had decided to wander the halls instead of heading back to her common room, that she found the room. The door looked normal from the outside—like most doors at Hogwarts did—but once she opened it, her breath was taken away.

Millicent’s family didn’t have much money. Her mother was dead, she had two older brothers, and her father drank too much. She wore hand-me-down robes and only owned one pair of shoes, and the only doll she had ever owned was stolen from Mandy Brocklehurst when they were six years old. She’d filched copies of _Witch Weekly_ from the newsstand on several occasions (only to have her older brothers later steal them to look at all the women in their fancy clothes), and had read about beauty charms and Muggle makeup and all the latest fashions.

But never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought that one day she too might have the chance to wear those flowing dress robes or paint her nails in bright colors or wear shoes that fit comfortably and didn’t pinch her toes or rub her heels raw.

She didn’t dare tell any of her roommates about this new and wondrous place, filled with rows upon rows of dresses and skirts, robes and gowns and everything in between. She counted fifty different pairs of shoes before giving up, more interested in trying them on than on knowing how many there were. There was a brightly lit mirror with an array of blushes and powders and shadows and glosses arranged in colorful rows along a table. The other girls would want it for themselves, and probably find a way to keep Millicent from having any of it for herself.

For years, it was her closest held secret, a place she could escape to when classes were frustrating, when her older brother would trip her in the hallway, when Potter and his gang got away with everything short of murder. She never wore any of the makeup out, never took any of the clothes, in fear that people would want to know where she found it, and in fear that somehow it would all vanish once she stepped through the doors, that this was all some wonderful dream, an illusion that would end at midnight like the old Muggle storybooks her grandfather would buy for her as a child.

It wasn’t until fourth year, with the announcement of the Yule Ball, that she ever considered the idea. She wouldn’t be able to afford dress robes or a gown, but in the last three years she had learned how to carefully apply lipstick and mascara, how to make her hair curl just so and shine like midnight. She knew she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the school, but she could pretend, for a little while.

Just for one night, she could be a princess, Cinderella going to her ball. And with a forest green gown and delicate silver shoes, a bracelet twining around her wrist that looked like a snake with emerald eyes, maybe her classmates would finally see her for what she longed to be, too.

* * *


End file.
